ITEM PHOTO BY OWEN O’ROURKE
The new Marshall Middle School in Lynn will be ready to open in the spring.
BY THOR JOURGENSEN
Peabody and Lynn are each on course to open new middle schools in 2016 as Saugus pushes forward with a long-term high school construction plan.
Peabody Interim School Superintendent Herbert Levine said interior construction work is underway in the new Higgins Middle School off Allens Lane and that school officials, who toured the building on Dec. 17, were impressed with contractors’ progress on the $92 million building.
“We saw a finished classroom and all the things the kids will experience. We’re moving along beautifully,” Levine said.
He said city officials are on track to “take the keys” for the new school from contractor Bacon/Agostini Construction in early June — two months after the opening date slated for the new Marshall Middle in Lynn.
Peabody students will start the 2016-2017 school year in the new Higgins.
Lynn Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy last week said the nearly 1,100 students attending the current Marshall School on Porter Street will move into the new Brookline Street school this spring.
Marshall and Higgins have similar price tags, and both will receive state building construction reimbursements. Levine estimates Peabody is due for a 55 percent reimbursement on Higgins’ price tag.
Construction on Higgins began in March 2014, and Levine credited the project contractor with keeping construction “on time and under budget.” He said he supervised four previous school construction projects in his career and called the Higgins project “the best building experience I’ve been involved in.”
Kennedy last week offered similar praise for Walsh Brothers, Marshall’s builder, crediting the contractor, in part, for helping move the school’s opening from fall to spring.
Even as they oversee completion of one school, Lynn officials are planning a second middle school project. Kennedy said the city hopes to zero in on a site for a new Pickering Middle School by April. The city also needs to ease elementary school overcrowding, and Kennedy thinks land behind the Bennett Street school administration building potentially offers enough space for an elementary school. However, she said, it needs more review.
Saugus officials plan to devote part of 2016 to advancing Saugus High School Building Project Committee planning that got underway this year. The committee is working with the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) to conduct a mandatory feasibility study and look at possible solutions to the problems that have been identified at the current high school.
An almost two year-long review period will focus on high school planning, beginning with the selection of a designer consultant.
The committee has already been participating in site visits of other newly constructed schools that have gone through the state building planning process. Members have used the visits as an opportunity to see what has and has not worked in other projects and to get an idea of specific features they would like to see at their own school.
Thor Jourgensen can be reached at [email protected].
